HOME story by Doug Smith LIFESTYLE
safely reducing FOOD WASTE In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30 and 40 percent of the total food supply. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, that’s approximately 133 billion pounds of food and $161 billion in 2010. This amount of waste has far-reaching impacts on how we can continue to feed our families. The cost to produce food just to add it to the landfill is a cost that is too high. As our population continues to grow we will need more available food each day in order to feed our families and with limited land and resources, this becomes more difficult. My question is why not find ways to use more of what we already have. Food loss occurs for many reasons. One type of loss such as spoilage occurs at every stage of the production. Between the farm and local retail outlet, food loss can happen from the harvest starting too soon or lasting so long that some just rots in the field. Inefficiency loss may occur during drying, milling, transporting, or processing which then exposes food to multiple types of damage. At the retail level, equipment malfunctioning, not being rotated properly, or simply over-ordering can lead to spoiled food. Even when everything goes right we waste more food by removing blemished produce or discarding meat that wasn’t cut as requested. We also contribute to food loss when we buy or cook more than needed and choose to throw out the leftovers. That’s just a few examples of what leads to nearly 40% of our food being wasted.
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VIPMagSC.com VIPMagSC.com
January 2022 February 2022
So what can we do as consumers to stop wasting food? First, we need to stop throwing away good food. Almost weekly in my own home, I get asked questions like this, “Is this sauce still good? How about the bread?” In the past, I would simply say look at the date on the package for your answer. But no longer. I don’t want to waste good food anymore because it’s at or beyond the “Best by” date. So I asked myself what does that mean anyway? I looked it up and this is what I learned. There are no uniform descriptions used on food labels for dating. As a result, there are a wide variety of phrases used on labels to describe quality dates.
EXAMPLES OF COMMONLY USED PHRASE: • "Best If Used By/Before" date indicates when a product will be of best flavor or quality. It is not a purchase or safety date. • "Sell-By" date tells the store how long to display the product for sale for inventory management. It is not a safety date. • “Use-By" date is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. It is not a safety date except for when used on infant formula. • “Freeze-By” date indicates when a product should be frozen to maintain peak quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.
